You're in Good Hands
So it goes. President Obama and the Democrats can finally crow about the passage of health reform legislation. Yes, it is laudable that the United States has managed, against tremendous political resistance, to provide bare-bones guarantees that most Americans will be "covered" by insurance and that some of the most egregious practices of the insurance companies will finally be brought under a measure of control.
Are we to be happy and grateful, however, that we have moved from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century? Now, in retrospect, the fight over reform has been a tragic national drama revealing just how truly backward the United States is and how easily manipulated its electorate has become. The American government allowed a thoroughly criminal private insurance system to flourish for decades, a racket that extorted the populace and profited by refusing an equitable return of services, resulting in the deaths of millions and the obscene enrichment of a few corporations. In the wake of an enormous publicly funded bailout of private capital whose corrupt practices nearly upended the American economy, it seems unconscionable that our health care system would be judiciously examined for reform then entirely handed back to the private sector -- but that is precisely what has just occurred.
In the final analysis, the administration's actions may have made an intolerably immoral situation a bit better. Rather than simply expanding Medicare or providing a public insurance alternative that could have ultimately led to true national health care, the well-being of the nation will be left in the hands of the same insurance robber barons that milked the nation of its wealth and its health. In those hands the profit motive will still be paramount no matter how many controls are applied to it.
America will now have to figure out how to implement the complexities of a new and convoluted national system, because the Democratic leadership claimed "it didn't have the votes" to do otherwise. History will record that the Obama White House failed an historic opportunity for substantive change in surrendering to bi-partisan right-wing interests and preserving the system of employer-based, for-profit medical care.
So it goes. President Obama and the Democrats can finally crow about the passage of health reform legislation. Yes, it is laudable that the United States has managed, against tremendous political resistance, to provide bare-bones guarantees that most Americans will be "covered" by insurance and that some of the most egregious practices of the insurance companies will finally be brought under a measure of control.
Are we to be happy and grateful, however, that we have moved from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century? Now, in retrospect, the fight over reform has been a tragic national drama revealing just how truly backward the United States is and how easily manipulated its electorate has become. The American government allowed a thoroughly criminal private insurance system to flourish for decades, a racket that extorted the populace and profited by refusing an equitable return of services, resulting in the deaths of millions and the obscene enrichment of a few corporations. In the wake of an enormous publicly funded bailout of private capital whose corrupt practices nearly upended the American economy, it seems unconscionable that our health care system would be judiciously examined for reform then entirely handed back to the private sector -- but that is precisely what has just occurred.
In the final analysis, the administration's actions may have made an intolerably immoral situation a bit better. Rather than simply expanding Medicare or providing a public insurance alternative that could have ultimately led to true national health care, the well-being of the nation will be left in the hands of the same insurance robber barons that milked the nation of its wealth and its health. In those hands the profit motive will still be paramount no matter how many controls are applied to it.
America will now have to figure out how to implement the complexities of a new and convoluted national system, because the Democratic leadership claimed "it didn't have the votes" to do otherwise. History will record that the Obama White House failed an historic opportunity for substantive change in surrendering to bi-partisan right-wing interests and preserving the system of employer-based, for-profit medical care.
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